Parish of Aderrig

*(i.e., Athdearg or the red ford). *

The Parish is returned in the seventeenth century as containing the townlands of Aderrig and Backstown.

It now comprises the townlands of Adamstown, Aderrig, Backstown, Backwestonpark, and Cooldrinagh *(i.e., *the corner of the blackthorn).

The objects of antiquarian interest are the ruined church, and the castle of Adams-town.

Aderrig, with the Castle of Adamstown.

The greater portion of the small and little known parish of Aderrig lies to the west of the parishes of Lucan and Esker, but it includes also an isolated townland called Adamstown which is surrounded by lands in the parishes of Esker and Kilmactalway. Within this townland are the walls of an old tower house, and these, excepting the ruined church, are the only remains of ancient buildings to be found now in the parish.

After the Anglo-Norman Conquest the lands of Aderrig and Cooldrinagh were granted to the lord of Leixlip, Sir Adam de Hereford. The lands of Cooldrinagh did not, however, long remain in his possession, and passed from him to John Moton, whose great-grandson Angelus, son of Philip Moton, had in 1289 a suit regarding them with the adjacent Priory of St. Wolstan, in the County Kildare.

Within the limits of the parish, or not far from them, lay the rath which has been mentioned in the history of Newcastle Lyons as belonging to the royal manor. As stated there, this rath was in 1291 granted by the Crown to Henry le Marshall, a merchant of Dublin, and in the fourteenth century we find a messuage and eighty-five acres in Marshallsrath, near Aderrig, held under the Crown by various persons, including in 1309 Thomas, son of Henry le Marshall, in 1326 William Douce, in 1343 Richard Pedelow, and in 1395 John Philip.

Before 1384 Sir John Cruise, of Merrion, had acquired some interest in the lands of Marshallsrath, and in the fifteenth century it is mentioned as portion of the property of his successors, the Fitzwilliams.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century the FitzGerald family were possessed of a messuage and nearly fifty acres of land at Aderrig, which James FitzGerald forfeited on his attainder, and at the same time the Vicars Choral of St. Patrick’s Cathedral appear as owners of some seventy acres of arable and pasture land, together with a small wood, a park called Roe’s croft, and a castle in the townlands of Aderrig and Marshallsrath.

After the dissolution of the Cathedral the possessions of the Vicars Choral at Aderrig were leased by the Crown to Chief Justice Luttrell, and subsequently were granted to Sir Nicholas White, of St. Catherine’s, under whom they were held by John Dongan. About the middle of that century the lands of Backweston, which had belonged to the Priory of St. Wolstan, were in the possession of Sir John Allen, sometime Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who, as has been stated in connection with St. Catherine’s, succeeded to the property of that Priory.

Adamstown Castle derives its name from a family called Adam, year 1556 and desired to be buried in Esker Churchyard. He was a stout English yeoman, and in his will, which he made when “whole in mind and perfect in remembrance although sick in body,” he gives a long list of live stock and of household goods, and mentions his wife Bell Gaydon, his two daughters, and his brother Nicholas Adam.

When the Commonwealth was established a century later there was stated to be on the lands of Aderrig only an old castle, but on the lands of Backweston there was ” a good fair house” with some cabins. This house was then occupied by Thomas Sedgrave, a member of a Dublin mercantile family - of which we shall see more at Cabra - and his family and servants formed a considerable part of the fifteen persons returned as inhabiting the lands.

After the Restoration the Whites and Allens, who had been dispossessed under the Commonwealth, once more appear as owners of the lands in Aderrig parish, together with Arthur, second Viscount Ranelagh, who seems to have succeeded to some Church property in the parish through his grandfather, Archbishop Jones; and Robert Scarborough, who has been mentioned as resident at an earlier date at Newcastle Lyons, is returned as the principal inhabitant in the townland of Aderrig.

Backweston House had then become the residence of Sir Bryan O’Neill, who was both a baronet and a knight. He was a descendant of the Chiefs of Claneboy, and proved himself a gallant soldier, first in Holland and afterwards on the royalist side in the Civil War in England.

In relating the vicissitudes of the O’Neill family Sir Bernard Burke has told how Sir Bryan O’Neill, with a few others, tried to rally the royal troops at the rout of Newburn, and how on the hard fought field of Edgehill he rallied the dragoons with undaunted courage, and finally saved Charles I. from being taken prisoner.

Honours came to Sir Bryan O’Neill, but without corresponding wealth, and after the Restoration he appears to have tried to add to his slender income by sending wool to France, a trade for which, on account of his constant loyalty and good service he was given a licence by the King.

Sir Bryan O’Neill, who was twice married, first to Jane Finch and secondly to Sarah Savage, whose mother was a daughter of Hugh, first Viscount Montgomery, of Great Ards died about 1670, and was succeeded by his son, who bore the same name.

Sir Bryan O’Neill, the second baronet, has been already mentioned in the history of Stillorgan in connection with his marriage to the widow of James Wolverston, who was a sister of Christopher Plunkett, tenth Lord Dunsany. He was educated as a lawyer at Gray’s Inn, which he entered in 1664, and, as stated in the history of Stillorgan, was appointed by James II. in 1687 as one of the justices of the King’s Bench in Ireland.

He died in 1694, and with him may be fitly closed the history of Aderrig as well as of his line, which declined, as Sir Bernard Burke has told us, to the direst extremity of poverty and misery. **

Ecclesiastical History**

The ruined church of Aderrig, which lies about two miles to the south-west of Lucan village, stands in an open field unprotected by any fence, and its walls are rapidly disappearing. Its dimensions were some thirty-six feet by eighteen feet, and its only architectural feature the lancet-headed doorway shown in the picture.

The church was one of those confirmed to the Archbishop of Dublin after the Anglo-Norman Conquest, and in the first half of the thirteenth century was granted by Archbishop Luke to St. Patrick’s Cathedral with a direction that five marks of the revenues were to be devoted to providing lights for the altar of the Blessed Virgin, and that die residue was to be distributed amongst the vicars celebrating Mass there.

The revenues were then considerable, and subsequently the church was erected into a prebend. Amongst the rectors and prebendaries we find, about 1220 John de Daunteseia, about 1279 Richard de Duckworth, who exchanged Aderrig with Roger de Derby, rector of half of the church of Leixup; in 1310 Adam de Stratton, and in 1328 John Kingeston, under whom the duty was performed by Galfred, the chaplain.

The right to the presentation of the church was at the last mentioned date the subject of a suit between the Archbishop of Dublin and St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which was decided in favour of the former, and a few years later an inquisition determined that the church was in the diocese of Dublin and not of Glendalough, as some persons had alleged.

In 1389 the Crown presented William Middleton to the living, and in 1395 Archbishop Welby granted the entire revenues to the Vicars Choral of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The faithful then seldom forgot in their wills the churches with which they had any connection, and in 1475 Joan Drywer, of Crumlin, bequeathed twelve pence to “the works of the church of Aderrig” and an overcloth for the altar.

After the dissolution of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1547 Chief Justice Luttrell undertook, on the possessions of the Vicars Choral being leased to him, to find a fit chaplain for Aderrig. At the beginning of the seventeenth century the church, although wanting repair, was still fit for use.

In 1615 it was served by the Rev. Emanuel Bullock, already mentioned in connection with Saggart, and in 1630 by the Rev. Robert Jones, curate of Newcastle, but their duties were not arduous, as the inhabitants were all Roman Catholics. Subsequently the parish of Aderrig became united to that of Lucan, and the church was allowed to fall into ruin.

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